RUSH: Trump commutes the sentence of Roger Stone. The media was glued to the courthouse where Stone’s sentence was announced and so forth. Can you think of anything that matters less to the people of the country than what was gonna happen to Roger Stone? But there the Drive-Bys were. They were all glued. Back on February 20th of this year, they were all glued to the courthouse.
They couldn’t wait for Roger Stone’s sentence to be announced. They knew that if Stone was sent to jail, it was just a matter of time before Trump was sent to jail. February 20th, 2020. And I asked even back then, do you think if Trump commutes or pardons Stone, that they’re gonna impeach him again? And they’re talking about it. Here’s Pencil Neck yesterday on This Week, George Stephanopoulos, “Hey, is this commutation of Stone’s sentence, is it an impeachable offense?”
SCHIFF: It’s an impeachable offense if you abuse the pardon power to protect yourself from criminal liability. We already presented a case with overwhelming evidence and they refused to convict then. And, indeed, of course, during that impeachment we warned that if they left him in my office knowing that he’d committed impeachable offenses, that the damage he could do between now and Election Day could be severe. And here we are now 130,000 Americans dead, we have no idea just how bad the damage would be.
RUSH: Wow. Those 130,000 American deaths are all Trump’s fault. Did you know that? They’re now prepared to make that case? And, man, this is really, really bad. It was an impeachable offense. This commutation of the sentence of Roger Stone is an impeachable offense. It isn’t impeachable! Of all things it isn’t, it isn’t impeachable. It isn’t illegal.
Here’s Pelosi yesterday morning, CNN, State of the Union the name of the show, Dana Bash said, “You called the president’s commutation of Stone’s sentence an act of staggering corruption. Is it an impeachable offense?”
PELOSI: It’s staggering corruption. But I think it’s important for people also to know that it’s a threat to our national security.
RUSH: What?
PELOSI: The whole impeachment process was about our national security. Why we are — the Supreme Court on these cases was to find out about the Russian connection.
RUSH: No, it wasn’t.
PELOSI: And we will continue to pursue that. This case was about the Russian connection.
RUSH: There was no Russian connection. You see how they do this? The Supreme Court to look at the Russian connection? There is no Russian connection. Pelosi, go see the Mueller report. There is no Russian connection. But they keep it alive because, I’m telling you folks, the people that watch mainstream media still think that there’s something there between Trump and Russia precisely because the media hasn’t let it go. They’ve undersold and downplayed what the Mueller report conclusion was.
But this threat to our national security, the whole impeachment process was about our national security, Supreme Court was to find out about the Russian connection and we will continue to pursue that? There isn’t anything.
So, folks, I want to show you something. Put that slide up there, Brian. For those of you watching on the Dittocam, this is a screen grab Fox News recently, and again we’ll give you the data, we’ll put it at RushLimbaugh.com. Commutations by president. I don’t know what the length of time here is. For example, the number under Trump’s name is 10 commutations. Under Obama 1,715. George W. Bush, 11. And Bill Clinton 61.
I’ve got some differing numbers here that don’t jibe with this at all. But they are the same in terms of percentage. I don’t know which of these are accurate now. But that number, 10 — let’s look at this — the ones that are up there, 10 commutations by president — we’re talking impeachable offense? Ten. This is commutations and pardons. Obama, 1,715 commutations and pardons. Bill Clinton, 61.
And again, I don’t know if these are first-term numbers because, you know, Obama served two, George W. Bush served two, and Clinton served two. Trump has only served one. So I’m assuming that these are first-term numbers. The other set of numbers I have are not sourced, so I’m not even gonna share them with you except that they’re the same percentage-wise.
But the point of this is that Democrat presidents commute and pardon more people than Republican presidents could even think about. In the case of Trump, 10 over the course of this first term. And you’re being led to believe that Trump is doing this and commuting every sentence or pardoning people for personal, political, and legal benefit when nothing is even close to the case.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. I figured it out once I had time to start deciphering things. The numbers — and put ’em back up there, Brian. These are commutations only that Fox News flashed, commutations only. Ten from Trump, 1,715 from Barack Hussein O, 11 for George W. Bush, 61 for Clinton, and those numbers are, by the way, for both terms of Bush, Barack Hussein O, and Clinton.
Now, if you add pardons, then the numbers change. You can take that slide off of there now, Brian, thank you. So if you add commutations and pardons, Clinton in his two terms, 459 people. George W. Bush, 200 people. Barack Hussein O, 1,927 people. And there wasn’t a complaint about any of them. There wasn’t a whine or moan or any concern about the threat to democracy, the threat to the rule of law, the threat to national security, not a one.
There was nothing but sycophanting sucking up. Whatever Obama did, the Drive-By Media was there running the risk of getting anal poisoning. They couldn’t help themselves. It’s an important point. Not one of those pardons and commutations out of the 1,927 people was of any concern to anybody. You didn’t dare, especially if the pardoned or commuted happened to be a minority. It didn’t matter if they were terrorists, it didn’t matter if they were really bad actors, if they were minorities, you really didn’t say anything about it. Donald Trump, as of July 11th, 36 people.
Now, granted, Clinton-Bush and Obama, these are two-terms numbers, so eight years. But Trump has a long way to go to catch up here, 36 pardons and commutations. So again the number, Clinton, 459; George W. Bush, 200 people; Obama, 1,927; Donald Trump, 36. And who are they having a panic attack over? You got it. Because that’s the only thing that matters, getting rid of Donald Trump.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: And I’m looking here at the Obama numbers and when he announced these commutations and pardons, and many of them were in his last week in office, second term.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, one more thing on this commutation business. I have a story here from — well, I don’t know the date. That’s not helpful. But I think it’s 2016 or 2017. It’s Obama’s last year. I think it’s from FiveThirtyEight, which is the Nate Silver website.
And the headline: “Obama Granted Clemency Unlike Any Other President In History.” They’re still debating this even on Fox, as though there’s something controversial here about the commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence. And of course one of the reasons that this has been sustained is that somebody wrote an op-ed and put Mueller’s name on it.
So they dragged Mueller in, he didn’t write that op-ed, everybody knows this. But that, then, sustains the news cycle. But what in the world in controversial? This is the 11th commutation, the 10th commutation. Obama with almost 2,000 commutations and pardons total, not a one of them was addressed in any way as being controversial, not a one of them was analyzed. They didn’t assemble panel discussions on cable TV to discuss what it means.
Now the Wall Street Journal editorial board is urging Trump to pardon Flynn. The editors at National Review came out and said it was a dumb thing to do to commute the Stone sentence. I don’t know what some people think.
At any rate, “In one more end-of-presidency act of clemency aimed at prisoners serving long sentences for drug-related offenses, President Obama announced Thursday –” so yeah, this is from the last week of his term. “– that he is commuting the sentences of 330 prisoners.” He did it in one day, 330 commutations. Maybe it was in one week.
“He has granted clemency to more people than any president since Harry S. Truman,1 and Thursday’s announcement was typical of how Obama’s approach to clemency has differed from that of his predecessors: Obama’s clemency is almost always given by freeing people from prison with commuted sentences, not pardoning people after their release.
“On Tuesday, with less than a week left in office, Obama granted clemency to 273 federal inmates, including Chelsea Manning, the army intelligence analyst who was convicted in 2013 of disclosing sensitive information to WikiLeaks.”
“Manning’s commutation was one of 209 that Obama made Tuesday; with the 330 from Thursday, his total number of commutations is now 1,715, more than any other president in history, according to the White House.” They were proud of it. They commuted or pardoned 539 people in two days during the last week of Obama’s term in office.
“Obama has granted dozens of pardons and commutations about once a month since August, and in December, he gave clemency to a record 231 federal inmates on a single day — a record that he broke on Tuesday and again on Thursday.”
Stunning. This is from FiveThirtyEight’s website. I don’t have the date of this, but our crack internet team at RushLimbaugh.com will find the date because we know how to search keywords, and we’ll get it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Speaking of, I want to read to you a tweet. I’m not gonna tell you whose tweet this is at first. This is gonna make you gag. You ready for this? This tweet is from yesterday: “New York City reports zero COVID-19 deaths for the first time since the pandemic hit. This is what competent government can accomplish.”
Does that not make you sick? It’s none other than conservative blogger for the Washington Post Jennifer Rubin, who tweeted, “New York City reports zero COVID-19 deaths for the first time since the pandemic hit. This is what competent government can accomplish.” Yeah, after you already have killed 6,200 people by sending ’em off to nursing homes. Or is it 9,500? What is the number of people that Cuomo killed? I’m sorry. What is the number of people who died because of Cuomo stashing them in nursing homes?
This is what competent government can accomplish? As opposed, of course, to the fact that Trump isn’t. Just amazing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Brian in Storm Lake, Iowa. It’s great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Proud to be with you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: My comment is when this coronavirus broke out, we were told it was compassionate and the right thing to do to let the prisoners out of Rikers Island and federal prisons and everywhere around the country.
RUSH: That’s right.
CALLER: But when President Trump — essentially all he did was just keep Roger Stone from going to jail, they make this big deal about it. What’s the difference?
RUSH: Well, that’s a great question, but you know the answer to the question. This is nothing more than an attempt to get Trump. They don’t even care about Stone. They don’t even care the Stone sentence was commuted. It’s just an opportunity.
Everything is about November the 3rd. They don’t care about the hypocrisy. They don’t think you’re gonna notice it. ‘Cause you’re exactly right. Prisoners were let go with en masse, 8,000 in one day in California to save them from getting the virus. Same thing in Rikers Island in New York.
But then Michael Cohen, who was one of the prisoners released, made the mistake of going to a restaurant in New York. He was seated Al Fresca, outside having dinner on the sidewalk. The paparazzi came along, they snapped a photo and sure as you can say lickety-split, Michael Cohen’s back in jail because he was flouting home release.
Let’s go to audio sound bite number 9, shall we? This is CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin this morning. Alisyn Camerota said, “Michael Cohen, the president’s long-time fixer, personal attorney, was put back in federal prison over the weekend. Is this because he refused to sign a document saying that he would not publish a book or that he would not speak to the media?”
TOOBIN: Well, that’s certainly what his lawyers say. This is an unusual situation because he was released because of the virus. But it’s also an unusual restriction. I mean, remember, Martin Luther King wrote a letter from a Birmingham jail.
RUSH: Are you kidding?
RUSH: Are you kidding?
TOOBIN: And there’s a real question here about whether Michael Cohen is being singled out because he’s critical of the president. That’s something that we need to know.
RUSH: Are you kidding me, we’re gonna compare Michael Cohen to Martin Luther King Jr.? Now, if that’s the case, how far have they fallen. But what it really means, they’re so upset, they’re so upset over the Stone commutation, they’re trying to get Michael Cohen free so he can go out and talk to ’em. They want Michael Cohen released so he can spill the beans on Trump, except Cohen doesn’t have the beans.
If Cohen had the beans to spill, he wouldn’t be in jail now, would he? If he had enough data, if he had enough beans on Trump to spill that would be bad for Trump, then he would have got some kind of sweetheart deal, but he didn’t, did he? I find this all extremely curious. The Drive-Bys just have no clue that we can see the glaring hypocrisy here.
Related Links